Gone

hands wide in a gesture of conciliation.
    “It’s, like, people pay taxes, right?” Mallet said.
    “Exactly,” Howard agreed. “It’s a tax.”
    “Who are you, anyway?” Astrid challenged Mallet. “I’ve never seen you at school.”
    “I go to Coates Academy.”
    Sam said, “My mom’s the night nurse up there.”
    “Not anymore,” the kid said.
    “Why are you down here?” Astrid again.
    “I didn’t get along with the kids up there.” Mallet tried to toss the line off like it was a joke, but the effect was undermined by the fear in his eyes.
    “Are there any adults up there?” Sam asked hopefully.
    “Aw,” Howard said. “Sammy wants his mommy.”
    “Take the golf cart,” Sam said.
    “Don’t waste your time trying to look all bad at me. See, I know you, man,” Howard said. “School Bus Sam. Mr. Fireman. You go all heroic, but then you disappear. Don’t you? It kind of comes and goes with you. Everyone last night is all, ‘Where’s Sam? Where’s Sam?’ And I had to say, ‘Well, kids, Sam is off with Astrid the Genius because Sam can’t be hanging out with regular people like us. Sam has to go off with his hot blond girlfriend.’”
    “She’s not my girlfriend,” Sam said, and instantly regretted it.
    Howard laughed, delighted to have provoked him. “See, Sam, you always got to be in your own little world, too good for everyone, while me and Captain Orc and our boys here, we’re always going to be around. You step away, and we step up.”
    Sam could feel Astrid and Quinn watching, waiting for him to deny what Howard was saying. But what was the point? Sam had felt the expectations of so many kids in the plaza, kids waiting for him to step up, like Howard said. And all he had wanted to do was run away. He had jumped at the chance to go off with Astrid.
    “I’m bored with this,” Orc grunted.
    Howard grinned. “Okay, Sam. You can go find Little Pe-tard, but when you come back, you better have a nice present for the Captain. Captain runs the FAYZ, man.”
    “The what?” Astrid asked.
    Howard was clearly pleased to be asked. “I came up with that myself. FAYZ. Spelled F-A-Y-Z. It stands for Fallout Alley Youth Zone. Fallout Alley, and nothing but kids.”
    Howard laughed his mean laugh. “Don’t worry, Astrid, it’s just a FAYZ. Get it? It’s just a FAYZ.”

    The sun was hot on her face. Lana opened her eyes. Ominous winged shapes floated above her, crossed the sun, floated back. The vultures watched her and waited, confident of a meal.
    Her tongue was swollen so that it filled her mouth, almost gagging her. Her lips were cracked. She was dying.
    She looked around for the body of her poor dog. He should have been right there beside her. But there was no body.
    She heard a familiar bark.
    “Patrick?”
    He came bounding over to her, excited, urging her to come and play.
    She lifted her one good arm and touched Patrick’s neck. His fur was matted with dried blood. She probed where the fatal bite had been. The wound was closed. There was still a scab on the site, but it was no longer bleeding, and judging from Patrick’s behavior, he had never felt better.
    Had she dreamed it all? No, the dried blood was proof.
    She strained to recall her last conscious moments from the night. Had she prayed? Was that it, a miracle? She didn’t remember doing that, she wasn’t a person who thought about prayer.
    Had she caused this? Had she somehow healed Patrick?
    She almost laughed. She was getting delirious. She was losing her mind. Imagining things.
    Crazy from the pain and thirst and hunger.
    Crazy.
    She smelled something foul. Sickly sweet and foul.
    She looked at her shattered right arm. The flesh, especially the taut, stretched flesh that barely contained her shattered arm bones, was dark, black edging toward green. The smell was awful.
    Lana took several deep breaths, shaky, fighting the upsurge of terror. She’d heard of gangrene. It was what happened when flesh died or circulation was cut off. Her arm was dying. The smell was the odor of rotting human flesh.
    A vulture fluttered to a landing just a few feet away. It stared at her with beady eyes and bobbed its featherless neck.The vulture knew that smell, too.
    Patrick came bounding back, barking, and the vulture reluctantly flapped away.
    “Not getting me,” Lana croaked, but the weakness of her own voice just scared her further. The vultures were going to get her. They were.
    But there was Patrick, healed after a